Dale Pruitt runs a four-man electrical subcontracting crew out of Mansfield, and in August he landed the biggest job of his year: rough-in and finish work on a mixed-use building for a general contractor based in Arlington. The subcontractor agreement showed up a week later, and buried in the insurance requirements section was a number that stopped him cold — five million dollars of commercial general liability, with the general contractor named as an additional insured. His current policy didn't come close.
Dale's first instinct was to call around for a bigger policy, figuring some carrier out there had to write that kind of limit for a shop his size. What he found instead was a structure most small contractors run into eventually once the jobs get bigger: no single policy, but two policies stacked together.
What the contract is actually asking for
A requirement like this has two parts, and both matter. First, it's asking for a specific dollar amount of liability coverage — five million dollars — sitting behind Dale's work on the project. Second, it wants the general contractor added to that policy as an
additional insured, meaning the GC gets direct protection under Dale's coverage if a claim arising from his work names them too.
General contractors ask for numbers like this because their own contracts, with the property owner or developer above them, usually carry similar or larger requirements. The demand rolls downhill: the GC's contract sets the bar, and every subcontractor on the job gets handed a version of the same bar to clear.
It's not personal, and it's rarely negotiable on a project of any size. A framing crew, an electrical sub, and a plumbing sub might all see the identical five-million-dollar line in their separate agreements, because the general contractor is simply passing along what its own contract already requires from everyone touching the site.
Why one policy will not get you there
Here's the practical problem: no small-business general liability carrier is going to write a single primary policy anywhere near five million dollars for an operation the size of Dale's crew. Standard commercial general liability policies for contractors this size typically top out somewhere around one million per occurrence and two million in aggregate, and that ceiling isn't a matter of shopping harder — it reflects what that layer of the insurance market is built to write.
Chasing a single insurer willing to write the full five million as one primary policy is, for most subcontractors, not a realistic path. It either doesn't exist at that size of business or comes at a cost that makes far less sense than the alternative most contractors actually use.
This isn't a sign that something is wrong with Dale's business or his loss history. It's simply how the insurance market is structured: primary carriers write the first slice of risk, and a different part of the market exists specifically to sit on top of that slice.
How the layers stack
The answer is layering, not replacing. Dale's underlying
commercial general liability policy stays exactly where it is, raised to whatever maximum limit his carrier will offer — commonly a structure like one million per occurrence and two million aggregate. Nothing about that policy changes in how it handles an everyday claim, and the premium he's already paying keeps doing the same job it always did.
On top of that underlying policy sits an excess liability policy, a separate policy from a separate carrier that adds additional limits above the primary. It doesn't take over for the underlying GL policy; it only responds once the underlying limits are used up on a covered claim. Two policies, two premiums, one combined tower of coverage that together reaches the number the contract is asking for.
The attachment point is where deals go wrong
The dollar figure at which the excess policy starts responding is called the attachment point, and it has to line up exactly with the underlying policy's limit. If the underlying GL policy tops out at one million and the excess policy is written to attach at one million, the tower is continuous — no daylight between the layers.
Where this goes wrong is when the two policies don't match. An excess policy that attaches at two million sitting above an underlying policy that only reaches one million leaves a bare gap of a million dollars in the middle — a layer where neither policy responds, and Dale would be paying that portion out of pocket on a large claim. A mismatch here isn't a paperwork detail; it's the difference between a working tower and a hole in the middle of it.
What has to appear on the certificate
The
certificate of insurance Dale sends to the general contractor needs to show both policies clearly, not just a single combined number. The underlying general liability policy is listed with its own limits, and the excess policy is listed separately with its own limits and its effective attachment point.
A GC's insurance reviewer is trained to check that the two layers actually connect, so a certificate that only shows the excess policy, or shows the two without their attachment points lining up, tends to get kicked back for correction. Getting the certificate right the first time saves a round of back-and-forth that can stall a project start.
Why this takes lead time
An excess liability carrier doesn't just take the underlying policy's word for it. Underwriting the excess layer typically involves reviewing the underlying policy itself, several years of loss history, and sometimes details about the specific project, which takes real time to assemble and review — not something turned around same day.
Contractors who wait until the week before mobilization to ask about a five-million-dollar requirement are often the ones who end up delaying a job start. The better habit is pulling the insurance section out of a contract the moment it's in hand, before signing, and getting that conversation started while there's still lead time to work with.
Dale's crew ended up starting the Arlington job on schedule, but only because he brought the contract in the same week he received it rather than the week before mobilization. A five-million-dollar requirement is entirely workable for a small shop — it just isn't a same-day errand.
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Educational only; coverages and availability vary by carrier. TAP Insurance Agency, PLLC — Rhome, TX, licensed in Texas and Oklahoma.
